instant photos

For the third or technically second year, I have been bringing the Polaroid SX-70 camera to shoot some fun instant photos in Toronto. The first year was using a Fujifilm Instax.
Don’t worry, I was still shooting digital with the Sony a7 and the iPhone 6, there was a lot of juggling to do.

I know people will still call it Polaroids as I’ve been using The Impossible Project films to use it. It’s just fun to shoot analog photos and bringing a sense of originality. It’s more like a dying art but younger generations are using the Fujifilm Instax Mini. It’s the competitor to Impossible and is more stable with their instant photos.
I didn’t shoot Polaroids during live shows as I was not sure about using flash and possibly getting told by the security or the NXNE volunteers. It was better to use it to shoot with people outside of the shows.

During the CBC Radio 3 Unofficial Fan Picnic, I took a bunch or Polaroids and gave them away to people. There was no chance in scanning them to the Impossible iOS app. I was able to keep some that I took. On the first day, I gave away two round frames to friends and was able to scan it from the app.

Lastly, You can the photos from below. I’m making sure these are posted first to the blog and then onto various social media sites.
As the saying goes, film is not dead. Continue reading →

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It’s been awhile I have written a blog post and it’s most likely a Polaris Music Prize Gala withdrawal. October has been a slow month and it’s been a crazy and sombre time in Ottawa. The shooting in Ottawa on October 22, 2014 has been a tense and sad time as we all know that Cpl. Nathan Cirillo lost his life at the National War Memorial. People in Ottawa have bringing life back to normal after the tragedy. On Saturday night, I had the opportunity to drop by to the National War Memorial and pay my respect. It has been a week that I haven’t gone to downtown Ottawa. It’s a new reality set in the Nation’s Capital. Onto the entry.

The Elwins in Ottawa
On Saturday night, The Elwins were performing at Mavericks as they’re on tour with the Manitoba band, Royal Canoe. The band from Keswick, Ontario, which is north of Toronto are having a surprising year as they got signed to Hidden Pony Records. It’s worth mentioning that the band is taking up a challenge as they’re going to be TV critics. You can follow them at elwinsTVclub and @TheElwins on Twitter as well as blogging at The Huffington Post.
As for the concert, they played some of the usual songs and played some new songs. There was a good crowd for the show at Mavericks and for my experience, I was near two young ladies who were dancing enthusiastically and a bit of robo movements. The Elwins definitely brought the crowd to its feet as the city is moving back to normalcy from the tragic event of the past week. Prior to The Elwins playing was the Ottawa band, Pith and the Parenchymas.
I didn’t stay too long for Royal Canoe’s performance but there was a good turnout for the Winnipeg band.

You can check the photos via Flickr by clicking HERE. There’s also two Impossible B&W photos of The Elwins below.

The Haunted House Pop Up Show
Before going to the concert, I decided to drop by in the Westboro area for this event. It was a pop up shop as well as a Halloween costume party and festivities. Entering the pop up shop was a terrifying but creative entrance in time for Halloween.
The pop up show had paintings on display and sale as well as a photo booth and fortune telling. It was a fun event
I was there to give some support to DJ 2 Creamz as he spun some Halloween tunes. I decided to take some photos from the Polaroid camera and the digital camera. The Impossible Project B&W photos will be posted below.
Kudos to Dream Love Grow for hosting the event.

Since I hadn’t written anything for the month of October, I’m going to post some photos taken from the iPhone 6. That’s right, I changed phones as I finally upgraded. I had been using the iPhone 4S for about three years and needed to replace a phone. From below, some photos from Saturday’s event.

It has been whirlwind of a week in Ottawa and hoping you are safe with the loved ones.
Enjoy! Continue reading →

Back from Ottawa and this will be a wrap-up to the 2014 Polaris Music Prize coverage. This is more on the photos, instant photos, to be precise.
From the previous entry, I mentioned that half of the photos were on Flickr, it’s now updated and you can go to the link by clicking HERE.

I also brought along the trusty Polaroid SX-70 camera and several packs of The Impossible Project films to Toronto for the Polaris Music Prize Gala. Worse part was having to carry multiple equipment with a small carry bag. At least, I was able to bring the fun to shooting instant film photos. You will see the colourful frames and wonderful black & white photos taken from the pre and post Polaris Gala as it’s posted below.
I got a chance to try out Impossible’sB&W Film for 600 Hard Color Frames Edition. The colour frames looked great with the black & white instant photos. It’s definitely fun to look at.
You will see some of the familiar faces with the Impossible instant photos.
There’s a few instant that didn’t out well and that’s being posted up.

Short Basia Bulat Interview
It’s been awhile I have done audio interviews and had the opportunity to do a quick chat with Basia Bulat. You can listen to the interview from below. It’s just great to see her at the Gala.

For fashion, I rarely dress up nicely and shoot selfies. It was quite dapper of me to wear the bow tie from Hudson’s Bay.

Other Things
Going off on a different topic or going backwards. Prior to attending the Polaris Music Prize Gala, as I arrived to Toronto, I went straight to CBC Toronto, the Canadian Broadcast Centre for an informal tour of the building. I’m surprised that the CBC social media/digital team have been wanting to meet up for awhile but scheduling and lack of travel, it wasn’t worked. Luckily, with the Polaris Music Prize, I was able to make a schedule to come by to the building. It’s great seeing the radio side again but never got to see the main studios (#40, 41 and 42) from the tenth floor. The last time I went on a tour, it was with CBC Radio 3. I posted several photos on my Instagram if you can look for the CBC related photos.

Lastly, a final shoutout goes out to Be SixFifty Hotel. It’s a boutique hotel located on Bay St. Their decoration is stylish and more like a fashion-chic setting. Checking into my room, it was a small, which was fine as I stayed for one day. I was provided with a bottled water and some nice treats. They were the yummy macarons and candied nuts. The staff were friendly and decided to give one of the staff an instant photo. The price is under $200 if you’re going solo and it’s convenient in the downtown core of Toronto.

That’s the fun adventure I had and time for some rest and relaxation from the sweat and muscle pain. Also quite unusual to post two entries in one day.
Enjoy!Continue reading →

Last night was an enjoyable time to check out the third edition of Nuit Blanche Ottawa+Gatineau. NBOG is an event where artists creative a unique playground and space surrounding the downtown zones of Ottawa and further down Wellington West/Hintonburg. This year’s theme or tagline is Bypass! What that meant was that artists try to convey us of bypassing the use of culture and direction within the city.

The place I wandered around, they were at Byward Market, Ottawa School of Art, Arts Court and Canadian Museum of History. I went pretty early to some of the places as some art displays were not set up. One of the unique installations was down by the Wellington and Elgin bridge. It was an airplane crash simulation-type and not for the faint of heart.

Over at Arts Court, there were several exhibits and displays there. There was this unique installation called Passage by Jesse Stewart and it’s an audio-visual experiment where he used the tunnel from Arts Court to Mugshots Bar. Uniquely dark walking to the tunnel and then experiencing the tight, cramped space climbing the ladder and onto one of the holding cells of the former jailhouse. It’s also the last time where the tunnel will be used as Arts Court/Ottawa Art Gallery will be renovating.
There were art exhibits on display in conjunction with Ottawa International Animation Festival. One stood out was Disney Made Me Do It. You will see some photos posted on Flickr.

At Ottawa School of Art, there was a micro party and outside the school, there were food stands from tacos and Chinese style buns. Lot of fun activities at that building.

For the second year in attending the event, there was rain dropping on and off. I had two cameras and an umbrella to contend with. This kind of event brings the interactive fun to Ottawa and to show that arts scene is thriving in the Nation’s Capital.
Unfortunately, I didn’t stay for the whole night as I had to take the final bus ride at around midnight. Before leaving downtown, I bumped into a few friends and took some instant photos and you will see those from below.
You can check the photos over on Flick. Click HERE.

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On Friday morning, I had the opportunity to attend another panel discussion by Arboretum Festival and presented by Creative Mornings Ottawa. The topic from the panel discussion was called Where’s The Cultural Press? The panel consisted of moderator Rolf Klausener (founder of Aboretum Festival), Sharif Virani & Michael Gregoriev as hosts.

The panel itself had Marie LeBlanc Flanagan (founder/director of Weird Canada), Peter Simpson (arts writer for the Ottawa Citizen), Lesley Marshall (editor of Small Talk) and supposedly, Allan Wigney (music writer/editor, Bubbles Wig, ex-editor Ottawa Xpress) was scheduled to be part of the panel but no showed.

The discussion of cultural press ranged from the consumption on readers from physical to digital to what’s changing the cultural press. Certain parts had some contentious issues as print media has dwindled and cater more for the older readers. An example is the print version would cover opera instead of a rock concert. Young people are more into the online and digital culture as a more convenient way to access materials.

It was a good panel discussion, even though one person was missing. For those who missed it and interested, you can watch it over from Livestream by clicking here.

You can check out the photos from Flickr by clicking here. There’s also the final set of Impossible Project Spectra instant photos in double exposure from below.
Have a great weekend.Continue reading →

On Tuesday night, Arboretum Music Festival held another free and fun event called See You In Hull, which was presented by Ottawa Vélo Vogue and Raw Sugar Cafe. It was a social and bike convoy event as people who brought their bicycles to travel from Raw Sugar Cafe in Ottawa Chinatown to Le Troquet in Hull, Quebec. Prior to the bike ride, there were portraits taken with people and their bikes.
At Raw Sugar Cafe, they had the delicious pull pork sandwich and chilli served.
The weather was also nice outside as it was totally sunny for the whole day.

For the photos, it is posted over at Flickr. The latter half of the photos were shot on the iPhone. You can check them out by clicking here.
Posted below are The Impossible Project Cyanograph SX-70 instant photos. I held out using the experimental film as it’s quite a unique, single colour. I had a difficult time touching up the photo after it got scanned due to the sensitivity of the film.

I’m still continuing on with the summer specials.Arboretum Music Festival is in its third year and Monday night at Art Court was the launch of the young festival. In kicking off the festival, there was a panel discussion called Why I Left Ottawa. The panel discussion consisted of Kathleen Edwards (singer-songwriter and her hit albums, Voyageur and Asking For Flowers), Remi Thériault (Ottawa based photographer), Olivier Fairfield (drummer of Timber Timbre), and Emmanuel Sayer (director, Ottawa Explosion Weekend and CHUO program director). Moderator was Jason St. Laurent, curator of Saw Gallery. Prior to the panel discussion, there was Charcuterie & snacks provided by The Albion Rooms.

The panel discussed why Ottawa is considered boring but the panelists have said that the city is gradually getting interesting since their return. Edwards mentioned that music venue in Ottawa are getting less visible and that major bands and artists skip Ottawa because of the lack of venue availability. There was mentions of grants from the city and whether it’s viable to the artists, bands and fledging festivals.

Overall, it was a great panel discussion and it was over capacity as there were people standing further back of the Art Courts room.
Got to give props to festival organizer, Rolf Klausener and the staff for bringing a unique festival in Ottawa. Where’s there music, there’s other non-music events to discover at Arboretum Music Festival.